User talk:Lmesch

Welcome!
Hello, Lmesch, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with Wiki Education; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:03, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

A lengthy welcome
Hi Lmesch. Welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you don't mind if I share some of my thoughts on starting out as a new editor on Wikipedia: If I could get editors in your situation to follow just one piece of advice, it would be this: Learn Wikipedia by working only on non-contentious topics until you have a feel for the normal editing process and the policies that usually come up when editing casually. You'll find editing to be fun, easy, and rewarding. The rare disputes are resolved quickly and easily in collaboration.

Working on biographical information about living persons is far more difficult. Wikipedia's Biographies of living persons policy requires strict adherence to multiple content policies, and applies to all information about living persons including talk pages.

If you have a relationship with the topics you want to edit, then you will need to review Wikipedia's Conflict of interest policy, which may require you to disclose your relationship and restrict your editing depending upon how you are affiliated with the subject matter. Regardless, editing in a manner that promotes an entity or viewpoint over others can appear to be detrimental to the purpose of Wikipedia and the neutrality required in articles.

Some topic areas within Wikipedia have special editing restrictions that apply to all editors. It's best to avoid these topics until you are extremely familiar with all relevant policies and guidelines.

If you work from reliable, independent sources, you shouldn't go far wrong. WP:RSP and WP:RSN are helpful in determining if a source is reliable.

If you find yourself in a disagreement with another editor, it's best to discuss the matter on the relevant talk page.

I hope you find some useful information in all this, and welcome again. --Hipal (talk) 22:13, 3 July 2021 (UTC)